The present invention concerns arrangements used to hold X-ray film vacuum cassettes in proper exposure position on an X-ray exposure-taking machine, expecially for mammographic applications.
A holding arrangement of this type is already known, in which the vacuum cassette is shoved into the holding arrangement from in front, i.e., from the side of the holding arrangement at which the patient herself would be positioned during the performance of an X-ray exposure. With this known holding arrangement, when cassettes are to be exchanged the patient must lean herself back or step away from the holding arrangement, in order to permit the technician to remove one cassette and insert the next. The cassette is slid into the holding arrangement between two fixed and stationary lateral guide structures, and during the last little part of the insertion the cassette locks into place in the holding arrangement. Especially in the case of mammography, it is common to take X-ray exposures of the patient's breast from the side, and for this reason the cassettes must be capable of being held in vertically arranged adapters. With conventional adapters of the type described above, the cassette is firmly connected to the adapter only at the end of the cassette where the locking action referred to above is established, and at the other end of the cassette the cassette can swing away from its proper position. Additionally, it sometimes occurs that the patient's skin becomes caught in and pinched between the adapter and the cassette.